Sunday, July 30, 2017

Former Tegucigalpa Police Commander Jorge Barralaga Hernandez was arrested and his home was confiscated. He is accused of money laundering.

Barralaga rose to fame in October, 2011, because he allowed the four policemen accused of killing 4 university students, including rector Julietta Castellanos's son, to be freed from jail, allowing them to then flee. At the time Baralaga was in charge of District 1 of Tegucigalpa and the four policemen, Sub Inspector Carlos Galeas Cruz and policemen Wilfredo Figueroa Velasquez, Arnulfo Padilla Roderiguez, and José Ruben Pozo, were under arrest in District 1 for the crime of murdering four university students. Even though a court had ordered them held, in October, 2011 he released them, and they fled into the countryside. For this action he was fired.

In 2012 he filed a legal appeal, seeking reinstatement and back pay; that case was never heard and remains open. In 2013 he was accused and had an initial audience in court for abuse of authority along with Marco Tulio Palma in freeing the four accused of killing the university students. That case remains untried. As early as 2010 a police investigation found that Barralaga, then serving in the border Department of Copan, had illicit income from corrupt sources, probably drug running, but high levels of the National Police, including Juan Carlos "El Tigre" Bonilla, sat on the investigation and allowed Barralaga to continue to serve and be promoted.

Baralaga was arrested this morning and his house confiscated. He is accused of money laundering. The police are still investigating the source of the 27 million Lempiras ($1.2 million) he has in personal bank accounts.

Friday, July 14, 2017

The Misión de Apoyo Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad en Honduras (MACCIH) announced Thursday that it would begin investigating, not the murder of indigenous activist Berta Cáceres, but the funding and government contracts of DESA, the company building the Agua Zarca dam for possible corruption and money laundering.

Mission spokesperson, Juan Jimenez Mayor announced the OAS mission would look into DESA, how it got its government contracts for the Agua Zarca dam and ENEE electricity purchase, and how it grew from a company with less than $1000 in capital in 2009 to have over $17 million in 2014. In particular, Jimenez Mayor said the Mission wanted to verify the source of the funds, and whether DESA was money laundering.

Another aspect of the Agua Zarca project that Jimenez Mayor said was interesting was the awarding of the original environmental license in 2010, and the enlarged project environmental license in 2011. The latter, approved by Dario Roberto Cardona, then sub secretary of the Secretaria de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente (SERNA). Jimenez Mayor noted that while Cardona was being prosecuted for issuing the expanded environmental license in 2011 without proper consultation with the indigenous communities around Agua Zarca, he wondered why the issuer of the first environmental license, then Minister Rigoberto Cuellar, was not being investigated for the same crime since the same problem exists with the first environmental license issued in 2010.

Jimenez Mayor also pointed to Congress, and its approval of an electricity buying contract from DESA to ENEE that called for ENEE to purchase more electricity than initially agreed on.

DESA denies there was an increase in its electricity production licensed by Cardona, and maintains it properly consulted with the municipality through open meetings, and that ILO 169 has not been codified into Honduran law.

The Agua Zarca project remains suspended. The recent withdrawal of two of the international funding agencies (the Netherlands Development Bank (FMO) and the Finland Fund for Industrial Cooperation (FINFUND)) has not resulted in its cancelation because much of the funding comes from the Banco Interamericano de Integración Económica (BCIE) which has not withdrawn its support.

Luis Gutierrez, a Congress person from Illinois, as part of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, met with John Kelly, head of Homeland Security earlier this month. The caucus learned that Kelly intends to end both Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program this year, opening hundreds of thousands of "Dreamers" and legally present temporary residents to immediate deportation. Gutierrez issued a statement saying:

"Secretary Kelly determines the future of TPS and basically told us he is not sure if he will extend it for hundreds of thousands of people. He also said that the future of DACA is up to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, America’s leading advocate against immigration, so Kelly was basically telling us DACA is facing a death sentence. They actually want to take millions of people who are documented – with our own government – make them undocumented, and then go after them and their families. " .......

Trump, Sessions and Kelly want to take 800,000 DREAMers with DACA and hundreds of thousands with TPS who are registered with the government and in compliance with the law and make them into criminals, felons, and deportees in the next few months.

Gutierrez says he was told DACA will end in September. Kelly already has revoked the Temporary Protected Status of 55,000 Haitians, who have until September to leave the US. After that they will be prosecuted. Gutierrez says Kelly intends to next end the TPS for Central Americans